


Saints and Sinners (Arthur)

by rotrude



Series: Saints and Sinners [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Chance Meetings, M/M, Stranger Sex, War, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:45:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2612180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few days short of the Battle of Messines Second Lieutenant Arthur Pendragon meets a man he'll long remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saints and Sinners (Arthur)

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the lovely and kind argentsleeper!

4 June 1917, Flanders

Two more days on the ground and well behind enemy lines. Two more days before they're ordered up in the air again. Two more days before Arthur loses another one of his men or dies himself.

They're supposed to fly low over the lines and hit all available targets to facilitate the task of the II Anzac Corps and the 25th British Division. He got the order this afternoon and is fresh from sharing it with his subordinates. He didn't dream the empty look in their eyes or the taut lines that appeared on their faces upon delivery of his news. That mission, however, is forty-eight hours away; for now they're alive and in one piece, trailing up the lane leading to the local beer garden.

Music spills out of it, a cheery song that somehow sounds anything but to Arthur. A low glow emanates from the establishment's frosted windows, painting the lawn in its golden glow.

On the inside the place is packed, fogged with smoke. Its halo smudges the lights out, weakens their reverberation.

The main common room smells like grease from the type of food that goes with the beer, like the cheap tobacco soldiers trade among each other. His men make a beeline for the bar, ordering pints in their bad Flemish. With more of a drag to his step Arthur follows, asks for a beer. As he waits for ale to be pulled, he turns around and leans against the counter.

His gaze roams the tables. Carousing men deep in their cups sit around them in groups of ten or more. Some are hoisting tankards, others are laughing boisterously at jokes Arthur hasn't overheard but can guess at. No matter what the corps the punchlines don't change. One or two patrons have jumped up on the benches and are swaying precariously.

Arthur's eyes latch on a lanky fellow, all elbows and big hands. He's staring into his tankard, while one of his comrades talks his ear off. At one point the man's lips curl at the corners, but then his face steadies back into listlessness.

It's not that Arthur doesn't understand why a man would pull a sombre face these days, but he finds himself wishing this one would smile again, even if it's only the ghost of a smile. Because there was something about that grin of his that caused Arthur's mood to lift.

The soldier looks up, catches Arthur's eyes.

They hold gazes; Arthur counts the heartbeats. The soldier's eyes are blue. They pierce Arthur to the quick, like shrapnel under skin.

His beer arrives. Arthur drinks it in slow sips.

The soldier's comrade starts talking to his friend again, but Arthur's soldier keeps looking at Arthur.

Arthur puts his beer down on the counter, makes sure he has his soldier's eyes. He marches past a narrow set of French doors and into a garden. It's not much of one, but there are flower beds with flowers trying to push out of the soil, and gravel paths, and a solitary crab-apple tree. It's in bloom now and bearing flowers in shades of white and pink.

The shed and perimeter wall must have seen some battering from the shelling that went on in this area at one point, but plants are growing in the garden itself, and the air smells fresh, like spring, like life's going on.

Gravel crunches. The soldier skirts the flower beds and walks over to him. Arthur leans against the wall, under the eaves. With a snap of his hand to his brow the soldier salutes him His chest sticks out, shirt sticking to pectorals. The span of his shoulders is wide, though his torso ends in tapering hips and long legs that don't quite fill his uniform trousers. “Sir,” he says, eyes glow with something Arthur wants to name but doesn't yet.

Arthur pushes off the wall, makes the space between them equal to nought. “Corporal.”

“Sir,” the Corporal repeats, acknowledging him with the slightest tilt of the head.

Arthur studies the corporal, takes in his face, a deluge of angles, his body, the way moon light washes over him, highlighting the contours of sharp cheekbones and a much softer mouth. He takes note of the series of scratches under his ear, disappearing under his clothes, of how the top button of his jacket sits askew. Arthur wants to say, 'Ignoring regulations, are we?' but doesn't, both because he doesn't mean anything by it, doesn't care one jot about the state of this man's uniform, and because he feels he can't be the one to shatter the silence between them.

He isn't. He doesn't make the next move. The Corporal does.

His breath gets on Arthur's face, hot and sweet, with an aftertaste of hops. His hands come around Arthur's face, his fingers warm and dry, digging in on the bones at the base of Arthur's jaw. Arthur holds his breath, needs with everything he has for the Corporal not to move, to stay just so, to keep touching him forever. Under the tide of that touch Arthur softens with the torpor of well being and snaps wide awake all at once, heart hooking on a rhythm that's all spikes.

He trembles in place. He tries to master it, so much so that he must have gone rigid. The Corporal's eyes widen, he steps back. Arthur slides his hands in his hair and pulls him to him. They stagger together, grappling at each other's clothes, rumpling them in taut fists.

They come together. Arthur tastes the Corporal's mouth, open and wet, sliding on top of his, yielding with staggering ease, and then not. A harsh breath sifted through a flaring of the nostrils. Teeth plucking at lips, drawing blood, till Arthur's tasting the coppery taste of it, and he doesn't know whether it's his or the Corporal's. Doesn't care, is adrift with longing for this, the sobs and gasps, the softness and warmth of mouth and tongue.

The noises the night is rife with barge in upon them. Inside the Rijzende Zon someone starts a song and then more people join in. An engine starts with a coughing sound somewhere in the distance. Heels grind on gravel. Arthur pushes the man away, hears the little catch of his breath, the nascent protest on his lips so he hurries to speak, “I'm billted at the Gouden Leeuw. Room 12.”

 

***** 

 

Arthur sits on the bed, feet of the floor, hands clasped between his knees. His head is down. From time to time he looks up at the door, but mostly studies the carpet, the contours of its patterns, the clash of its colours. He concentrates on the tick of the small clock on the mantelpiece, its low burr. It's a regular tempo, cadenced, quite different from the beat of his heart.

There's a swift knock on the door. In two strides, Arthur gets to it, flings open the door.

The Corporal lowers his fist, steps inside.

With a twist of the key, Arthur locks the door behind him.

“So,” the Corporal says, lifting an eyebrow at the room.

Arthur licks his lips. “Would you like... I have some...”

The Corporal leaves his kit by the door. Stands and flicks the top button of his uniform jacket open. Arthur only stares, but he continues undoing them until the garment's off. He kicks off his boots, a pair that's crusted with mud at the soles and worn almost everywhere, slides off threadbare puttees.

Arthur swallows, but makes sure the Corporal knows he's looking.

It works. He chases a smile onto his face, a fleeting one, but beautiful. The shirt comes off easily. The Corporal's skin as pale as moonlight, but not unblemished. Scars ridge it here and there, pucker it in places. None of them is big enough or deep enough to ever have matched a dangerous wound, he's lucky that way, but they're there. The Corporal's hand hovers over the fastening of his trousers, which are pulled down together with his underwear, leaving the man bare.

Arthur's legs give, hollow out entirely. He sits on the bed for fear he'll make a spectacle of himself. Closes his eyes, breathes in, long and as steady as he can make it, then opens them again. 

Naked, the Corporal's beautiful. It's not that Arthur can't see the ravages of the war in him, how his stomach has hollowed more than it should, how too little meat still clings to him. It's not that he can't make out the welts and sores and scar tissue that cover it. But his shape is pleasing, long harmonious lines that find resolution in a wiry frame. He's flushing, from his chest up, and there's something moving about that.

Arthur scuttles up the bed, so his back's to the headboard and the Corporal pads over, the soles of his bare feet slapping against the floor. He sits in Arthur's lap, searches his eyes, his own both soft and somewhat tired. Arthur's not sure whether it's a physical form of weariness or a moral one, doesn't question it, only accepts the gift he's been granted, some measure human contact not designed to inflict pain.

The Corporal takes Arthur's palm, kisses it, guides Arthur's hand to his waist, where he's warm with life. When the Corporal cradles Arthur's face, Arthur breathes in deep. The Corporal leans forward and kisses his face a handful of times, his lips brushing against Arthur's forehead, nose and cheeks. He nuzzles onwards until they're mouth to mouth and Arthur loses himself in the expectation of a kiss. Feels he will dissolve at the touch, as if his body has lost all consistency and will never acquire it again.

The Corporal pulls on his lower lip with his teeth and laves it with his tongue. “Is this--” he asks, his voice low and serious, “is this what you want?”

“Yes.” Arthur digs his fingers in the flesh of the Corporal's flank. “Yes. That's what I had in mind.”

The Corporal doesn't tease Arthur for his evasions, for not stating flat out that it's sex he wants, needs. He covers his lips with his instead and gently pulls them into his mouth. He cushions them with his, slants his mouth across Arthur's in repeated brushes that are soft and like nothing's Arthur's ever known. 

Arthur sighs, exhales into it, and the Corporal takes that as his cue to dip his tongue into Arthur's mouth, to draw a long, slow kiss out of him.

It's like a love kiss, a consuming kiss, a kiss that thaws out Arthur's heart and make it hot in his chest.

“I'm Arthur,” Arthur says, before his lips are met again by the Corporal's. “Second lieutenant Arthur Pendragon.”

The Corporal says nothing in return, kisses him again, pressing his hand against Arthur's chest, placing it flat against Arthur's heart.

Arthur wonders if the Corporal can feel Arthur's heart jump under his palm, fears that he can, that he knows, drowns that consternation into the next kiss, chasing the taste of the Corporal in his mouth, along the soft of it, into the warm of it.

The Corporal unfastens the buttons of Arthur's shirt one by one, from collar down, slips his fingers beneath the folds of Arthur's tunic, palms his pectorals.

Arthur's chest rises with the breath he takes. They kiss. The Corporal smooths his hand down Arthur's body, lingering in places, moving it down his stomach, working it round his hip, splaying his fingers outwards.

Shocks of warmth and pleasure stab through Arthur. Scooting back, the Corporal undoes the front of his trousers, cups him through his underwear, strokes him slowly till Arthur is breathing wet breaths and pushing into the touch. The Corporal teases him with the heel of his hand, with the flat of it. Arthur hardens, sits up, searches the Corporal's neck with his mouth, roves his lips across his shoulder, nips the tip of it with his teeth.

Hunger unfurls deep within Arthur as well as need – for sex, for this man, for this night. Arthur burns with it now, and wants to chase that fire until he dissolves and he's no longer thinking.

The Corporal pulls Arthur's underwear down, wraps firm fingers around his cock and Arthur nearly comes because it's been so long and he's been so solitary and there's something about the Corporal, just something, that puts cracks into Arthur's self-control, into the very essence of him.

Warmth spreads from the Corporal's hand to Arthur's flesh. The Corporal lights up an ache in Arthur that is not just physical, can't be, because it reaches deeper, stops his heart, his thoughts, gives him a joy that starts in the body and spreads inwards and outwards. Becomes something else entirely.

The Corporal fits his palm around him, so all Arthur can do is feel the contact and wish for more of it. The Corporal digs his fingers into the underside of his cock and then swirls his thumb in circles around the slit.

Arthur bites the inside of his cheeks, almost can't take it. He's giving himself up, surrendering his control. And he wants to. He wants to lose all thought to the intimacy that this is, make his body the Corporal's for the taking.

The Corporal seems to get it. Seems to understand what Arthur's not saying. He fists his hand around the base of Arthur's prick, moves it up and down in a rhythm that gets faster and faster, until Arthur starts leaking and everything becomes slick and warm. The Corporal pulls Arthur's foreskin back, stretches it over the tip then slides it back in position again, and every sensation becomes that much keener. It takes so little to undo a man, so very little, even when his life has boiled down to nothing more than endless repetition.

By the time the Corporal settles into a rhythm, Arthur has trouble breathing and thinking too. He finds he wants. He wants to come, to feel as alive as he is now, and more; he longs to chase the crescendo of the sensations his body's steeped in. He wants for the Corporal to do the same, wants to ask him questions, find out who he is behind his silences. But he can't.

Helpless, Arthur grabs the headboard, braces his feet. Wants to lift his hips into the touch, wants to melt into it. He grips the Corporal's neck and the Corporal looks up, his eyes bright and radiating some kind of challenging. At the fire in his eyes, Arthur feels like he's been punched, low in the gut, like that punch has taken Arthur's breath and Arthur's heart has stopped with it. He pulls his knees up so his cock sticks out, lewdly reddened, and hid thighs fall open.

The Corporal stretches his lips around him, twists his fist at the base as his tongue flicks across the slit.

Arthur thrusts out of pure instinct, bucks into the warmth, tries to hold onto the last threads of himself, the ones that aren't unspooling in countless other directions.

Sliding back up, the Corporal catches the tip of Arthur's cock in his mouth, suckles it long and too gently for Arthur to get fully washed adrift on his pleasure, but with enough intent that Arthur's heart feels as though it's caged in an iron fist. The Corporal moves his mouth on him, sucks and laps at him and then he's takes him to the hilt, lets him hit his throat, where it's warm and tighter and Arthur shakes into orgasm.

Slowly Arthur cools down, his breathing steadies. He blinks at the ceiling, bats sweat off his lashes. The Corporal starts roaming kisses on his belly, on his hips and sides. He's still fervent, fevered. “I'm sorry,” Arthur says, “You haven't.”

“No.” The Corporal looks up. “But I can...” His hand goes to his groin; he cups his cock as though it pains him. “I can see to it.”

“No,” Arthur says, because it's not fair and not what he wants. What he wants is to make it a good day for the Corporal too. He knows how precious few of those soldiers get. Besides, he wants to be able to move the Corporal the way the Corporal did him. “No, use me.”

“Lieutenant,” the Corporal says and the way his lips twist tells Arthur he wants to make a joke of it, but his expression is revelatory of quite another tale. He wants it. He wants Arthur.

“Use me,” Arthur repeats, bolstered by that thought, and though his throat dries his voice comes out steady enough.

The Corporal swallows, touches him on the hip. “Turn around.”

The mattress soughing under him, Arthur does.

He hears the bedsprings give when the Corporal moves, places himself behind him, his body a line of heat pressed along Arthur's back. Arthur melts against him, sighs with the pleasure of human contact. 

The Corporal's lips are soft when they skim Arthur's nape, his shoulder blades. His breath is warm, quick, exhaled in escalating reverberations. His hands scramble along the length of Arthur's flank for purchase, his fingers clutching the jutting slice of bone. With his knee, the Corporal pushes Arthur's leg forward, says, “Let me do this.”

“How?” asks Arthur, not because he doesn't know, but because he can't imagine pulling this off with little to no forethought.

“Let me,” the Corporal says, raking his teeth along Arthur's shoulder, sucking bruises as he goes. “Let me.”

He rocks himself back and forth between Arthur's legs, his cock sliding hard and damp between his thighs. The Corporal's grip on Arthur's hip is like steel as he grinds against him. He moves his hips in short powerful bursts, smothers sobs on Arthur's nape. They sound like pain, they sound like frustration. With a low whine, the Corporal buries his head in Arthur's neck. He continues to move, pushing his cock between Arthur's legs.

It's not what Arthur had had in mind or anything complicated for that matter, but it seems it's getting the Corporal there, this purposeful rutting. For all its gracelessness, for all its desperation, there's a measure of frailty to the act, to the man's motions, that touches Arthur to the core.

The Corporal clings to Arthur, moving his lips against his neck in silent murmurs that probably mean something to him that Arthur quite absurdly wants to be declarations of faith and love. It aches, knowing that they aren't, that this is merely a moment in time, snatched from the war, and that whatever bond they're sharing now can't lead anywhere and most assuredly not to vows of... affection.

There's something fundamentally heartbreaking about it. Or about the fact Arthur would do this again and again, repeat this encounter ad infinitum if he only could. Yet he can't and it's all so pointless and absurd, the more so because he knows he can't recreate this another time and another place, with someone else. At least he feels he won't be able to.

The Corporal stops in his murmurings, his lips cease to brush Arthur's shoulders. His movements become brusque and clipped, lose their tempo. On a forward surge he freezes and he pulses out against Arthur's leg. It's sticky and warm.

As though he can't hold his head up any longer, the Corporal leans it against Arthur's shoulder. Kisses it, Says, “Thank you,” and though it's ludicrous that he should, the words put holes in Arthur's heart and lungs.

“You're welcome,” says Arthur, making sure to stay put, not to turn around, because if he did he'd ask for the Corporal to stay – which is impossible – for a redo, for a declaration, for anything.

“I--”

“Don't,” says Arthur, because he doesn't know what kind of words he's stopped.

The Corporal nods. “Can I stay a little longer?”

It's risky, it's absurd. If anyone found out... “Yes,” he says and his voice is steady, full of conviction, doesn't falter at all.

The Corporal dozes off, must have, for he grows quiet, and for a moment Arthur hears nothing but the pattern of his breathing, steady soft. He feels nothing but the warmth of him plastered along his side, the presence of him. He ought to move, they're dirty and lying on top of the covers and at night the air grows chilly enough out here in the country, even in June. But he doesn't move, doesn't shove the Corporal away or try and slip under the covers.

A while later – it might have been hours since all noises from the plaza his room faces have died down – the Corporal says, “Are you on leave?”

“No,” Arthur says. “Back in action in two days.”

“Me too,” says the Corporal, no bitterness to his voice.

“You're with the 25th, aren't you?” Arthur guesses, because he's seen the man's uniform, read his insignia.

“Yes.”

They both know what's in store for the Corporal. His division would have to attempt the capture of the Messines Ridge. Arthur can't admit he knows as much, not without divulging plans he's not sure the Corporal has clearance to be acquainted with. But even if Arthur wasn't aware of the advance they both know what's in store for a foot soldier.

“I'd better go,” the Corporal says, pushing off him. “My friend Will will be wondering where I ended up.”

“Yes,” Arthur says, turning around this time to watch as the Corporal slowly redresses. “It would be prudent.”

The Corporal's head whips up. “It's not like that. He knows.”

Arthur gasps in wonder. “And he accepts it?”

“He's the best of men,” the Corporal says, doing up his trousers. “But he's... protective of me. Will will worry about me.”

“Odd notion to entertain about a soldier this protectiveness, considering what you regularly face,” Arthur says, wishes he hadn't, the words left unsaid.

“Probably.” The Corporal shrugs. “I guess we're more than friends; we're like brothers.”

“I didn't mean...” Arthur starts.

The Corporal finishes buttoning up his shirt. “I know.” He crosses over. “You sound like a good sort.”

Arthur huffs a laugh. “I'm honoured.”

The Corporal tips Arthur's chin up, kisses his lips. “Thank you.”

Arthur's face warms at the cheeks and neck, and oh sod it, everywhere.

By the time Arthur has regained some composure, the Corporal's hoisted his knapsack up and made for the door. Arthur pushes off the bed and says, “Won't you tell me your name?”

There's all kinds of things in the Corporal's smile, challenge, daring, joi de vivre, a knowledge of Arthur that's so intimate it ploughs holes into Arthur's heart. “No.”

Arthur's shoulders sag. It feels like he's been shot, with the burn of it and the intense staggering pain of it. He has been actually ploughed down once. Knows what it's like. This isn't so different. “I suppose it's all right,” Arthur begins, eyes searching the floor.

“For luck.” The Corporal's eyes go warm. “If we meet again, I'll tell you.”

Arthur nods.

The door closes after the Corporal.

 

*****

 

7 June 1917

 

Arthur slips into the cockpit brightly lit by the dawn light, caresses the dash of his plane. “Let's do it right,” he says. He's about to proceed with his routine checks when he pictures a smile, a pair of blue eyes, the light in them. “For luck,” he says, before lowering his goggles. “For luck.”


End file.
